"_C'est un privilege de rencontrer den gnadigsten Herrn_," said he.
Confining myself to one language, I responded by informing him that
it was an honour always to meet so renowned a professor, and inquired
politely after the health of Hephaestus.
"Ah, Signore!" he cried. "Do not ask me. It is a tragedy from which I
shall never recover."
He sat down on a footstool by the side of Madame Brandt and burst into
tears, which coursed down his cheeks and moustache and hung like drops
of dew from the point of his imperial.
"Is he dead?" asked Madame.
"I wish he were! No. It is only the iron self-restraint that I possess
which prevented me from slaying him on the spot. But poor Santa Bianca!
My gentle and accomplished Angora. He has killed her. I can scarcely
raise my head through grief."
Lola put her great arm round the little man's neck and patted him like a
child, while he sobbed as if his heart would break.
When he recovered he gave us the details of the tragic end of Santa
Bianca, and wound up by calling down the most ingeniously complicated
and passionate curses on the head of the murderer.
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